Monday, November 15, 2004

Note how she leaves out the numbers of Chinese killed by the Chinese KMT (at least double the number killed by the Japs) and the numbers killed by the Chinese Communists (who in the leisure afforded by peacetime, shot and starved to death somewhere around 60 million).

In essence the problem can be reduced to this: we Chinese can kill each other, no foreigners allowed!

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Surely you can't be serious with your "very lengthy" but empty comments/theory.

What do you think? You are some kind of western propagandist?
Do you engage common sense to opine?

Thanks for the feedback yojimbo, but: What empty comments? How are my comments empty? What would make them full?

And, actually, I'm attacking a propagandist.

And, I've lived in Taiwan longer than any other country (I've lived in seven) and have spoken more Chinese everyday than English for the past decade. In fact, five years ago, I returned to Canada to learn English again because I couldn't speak it anymore. Am I still a westerner?

And you're not asking me to substantiate my position, as my position is that Iris Chang is a fraud. You're asking me to try to debunk your position, which is that China's population growth refutes the notion of China's CCP mass murder.

And what does "Do you engage common sense to opine" mean? I'm not trying to make fun of you but I honestly don't understand the sentence...

Nevertheless, thanks for the heads-up on the population growth. The figures for the alleged slaughter are all over the web and in the textbooks. They’re often wild and your suspicion is healthy, I agree. I pulled my figure out of a hat, without bothering to offer a footnote. I could have done so but this would only have lent the false appearance of authority. I haven't looked into this before and you're right to go after me for it.

However, as you will probably agree, China has had 2000 years of massive depopulation, followed by massive repopulation, followed by famine and war and then the whole cycle starts all over again. Lin Yu-tang, Huang Wen-Hsiung, etc. have written about this.

The population figures you give unfortunately say nothing in this context. What do they mean? They neither substantiate nor dis-substantiate. And, of course, you quoted Communist Party figures. I'm sorry, but I trust nothing by the CCP. I'm not trying to escape from your criticism, but I can't trust communists of any stripe from any country. They’re notorious liars. Sorry.

From: http://www.taiwan-agriculture.org/taiwan/rocintro3.html
According to census data, the total population at the end of 1993 was 20,944,006 (16,885,412 from Taiwan Province), having more than doubled since 1949.

/taiwan/profile/overview.shtml
"In the year 2000, the population of Taiwan was 22.3 million, an increase of 12.45% over 1987...The crude birth rate, crude death rate and the corresponding natural increase rate of population in 1945 were 38.31, 18.15 and 20.16 per 1,000 respectively. These figures had fallen sharply to 15.18, 5.71 and 9.47 per 1,000 respectively in 2000."

In other words, Taiwan's population has increased around 140~150% since 1949. Does this mean that 10% of China's population was killed by the CCP? No. I have no idea what it means. But, I suspect, neither do any of us.

As to the popularity of China's government that you bring up in your other post, you know as well as I do that the CCP would lose an election in a flash. Today's atimes.com headline is: "China faces up to growing unrest: More than 58,000 major incidents of social unrest took place in China last year, up 15% from 2002..."

Hmm....

Anyway, I wish the best for China and the Chinese people. I'm angry with the ghost of Iris Chang, not with China.

Biff Cappuccino

Biff again:

Sorry: My statement "In other words, Taiwan's population has increased around 140~150% since 1949. Does this mean that 10% of China's population was killed by the CCP? No. I have no idea what it means. But, I suspect, neither do any of us." was in reference to part of another post by yojimbo where he writes:

US population growth in 50 years
Year 1949 = 149,188,130
Year 1999 = 272,690,813 [80% increase]
(this includes a lot of immigration)
[US census] http://www.census.gov

China population growth in 50 years
Year 1949 = 541 million
Year 1999 = 1259 million [130% increase]
(practically no immigration)
http://www.cpirc.org.cn/en/density.htm

If China really butcher her people, is such growth possible?

Biff again: in other words, I’m comparing Taiwan’s 140~150% population growth rate to China’s 130% growth rate. But this is apples and oranges as the internal factors of each locale are very different. This is just another case of “…statistics, damn statistics and lies.”